So did Anchises speak, then, after pause,Thus to their wondering ears his word prolonged:“Behold Marcellus, bright with glorious spoil,In lifted triumph through his warriors move!The Roman power in tumultuous daysHe shall establish; he rides forth to quellAfric and rebel Gaul; and to the shrineOf Romulus the third-won trophy brings.”Then spoke Aeneas, for he now could seeA beauteous youth in glittering dress of war,Though of sad forehead and down-dropping eyes:“Say, father, who attends the prince? a son?Or of his greatness some remoter heir?How his friends praise him, and how matchless he!But mournful night Tests darkly o'er his brow.”With brimming eyes Anchises answer gave:“Ask not, 0 son, what heavy weight of woeThy race shall bear, when fate shall just revealThis vision to the world, then yield no more.0 gods above, too glorious did ye deemThe seed of Rome, had this one gift been sure?The lamentation of a multitudeArises from the field of Mars, and strikesThe city's heart. 0 Father Tiber, seeWhat pomp of sorrow near the new-made tombBeside thy fleeting stream! What Ilian youthShall e'er his Latin kindred so advanceIn hope of glory? When shall the proud landOf Romulus of such a nursling boast?Ah, woe' is me! 0 loyal heart and true!0 brave, right arm invincible! What foeHad 'scaped his onset in the shock of arms,Whether on foot he strode, or if he spurredThe hot flanks of his war-horse flecked with foam?0 lost, lamented child! If thou evadeThy evil star, Marcellus thou shalt be.0 bring me lilies! Bring with liberal hand!Sad purple blossoms let me throw—the shadeOf my own kin to honor, heaping highMy gifts upon his grave! So let me payAn unavailing vow!”Then, far and wideThrough spacious fields of air, they wander free,Witnessing all; Anchises guides his sonFrom point to point, and quickens in his mindHunger for future fame. Of wars he tellsSoon imminent; of fair Laurentum's tribes;Of King Latinus' town; and shows what wayEach task and hardship to prevent, or bear.

Now Sleep has portals twain, whereof the oneIs horn, they say, and easy exit givesTo visions true; the other, gleaming whiteWith polished ivory, the.dead employTo people night with unsubstantial dreams.Here now Anchises bids his son farewell;And with Sibylla, his companion sage,Up through that ivory portal lets him rise.Back to his fleet and his dear comrades allAeneas hastes.Then hold they their straight courseInto Caieta's bay. An anchor holdsEach lofty prow; the sterns stand firm on shore.

One more immortal name thy death bequeathed,Nurse of Aeneas, to Italian shores,Caieta; there thy honor hath a home;Thy bones a name: and on Hesperia's breastTheir proper glory.When Aeneas nowThe tribute of sepulchral vows had paidBeside the funeral mound, and o'er the seasStillness had fallen, he flung forth his sails,And leaving port pursued his destined way.Freshly the night-winds breathe; the cloudless moonOutpours upon his path unstinted beam,And with far-trembling glory smites the sea.Close to the lands of Circe soon they fare,Where the Sun's golden daughter in far grovesSounds forth her ceaseless song; her lofty hallIs fragrant every night with flaring brandsOf cedar, giving light the while she weavesWith shrill-voiced shuttle at her linens fine.From hence are heard the loud lament and wrathOf lions, rebels to their linked chainsAnd roaring all night long; great bristly boarsAnd herded bears, in pinfold closely kept,Rage horribly, and monster-wolves make moan;Whom the dread goddess with foul juices strongFrom forms of men drove forth, and bade to wearthe mouths and maws of beasts in Circe's thrall.But lest the sacred Trojans should enduresuch prodigy of doom, or anchor thereon that destroying shore, kind Neptune filledtheir sails with winds of power, and sped them onin safety past the perils of that sea.

Now morning flushed the wave, and saffron-garbedAurora from her rose-red chariot beamedin highest heaven; the sea-winds ceased to stir;a sudden calm possessed the air, and tidesof marble smoothness met the laboring oar.Then, gazing from the deep, Aeneas sawa stretch of groves, whence Tiber's smiling stream,its tumbling current rich with yellow sands,burst seaward forth: around it and aboveshore-haunting birds of varied voice and plumeflattered the sky with song, and, circling faro'er river-bed and grove, took joyful wing.Thither to landward now his ships he steered,and sailed, high-hearted, up the shadowy stream.

Hail, Erato! while olden kings and thronesand all their sequent story I unfold!How Latium's honor stood, when alien shipsbrought war to Italy, and from what causethe primal conflict sprang, O goddess, breatheupon thy bard in song. Dread wars I tell,array of battle, and high-hearted kingsthrust forth to perish, when Etruria's hostand all Hesperia gathered to the fray.Events of grander march impel my song,and loftier task I try. Latinus, thenan aged king, held long-accepted swayo'er tranquil vales and towns. He was the sonof Faunus, so the legend tells, who wedthe nymph Marica of Laurentian stem.Picus was Faunus' father, whence the lineto Saturn's Ioins ascends. O heavenly sire,from thee the stem began! But Fate had givento King Latinus' body no heirs male:for taken in the dawning of his dayhis only son had been; and now his homeand spacious palace one sole daughter kept,who was grown ripe to wed and of full ageto take a husband. Many suitors triedfrom all Ausonia and Latium's bounds;but comeliest in all their princely throngcame Turnus, of a line of mighty sires.Him the queen mother chiefly loved, and yearnedto call him soon her son. But omens direand menaces from Heaven withstood her will.A laurel-tree grew in the royal close,of sacred leaf and venerated age,which, when he builded there his wall and tower,Father Latinus found, and hallowed itto Phoebus' grace and power, wherefrom the nameLaurentian, which his realm and people bear.Unto this tree-top, wonderful to tell,came hosts of bees, with audible acclaimvoyaging the stream of air, and seized a placeon the proud, pointing crest, where the swift swarm,with interlacement of close-clinging feet,swung from the leafy bough. “Behold, there comes,”the prophet cried, “a husband from afar!To the same region by the self-same pathbehold an arm'd host taking lordly swayupon our city's crown!” Soon after this,when, coming to the shrine with torches pure,Lavinia kindled at her father's sidethe sacrifice, swift seemed the flame to burnalong her flowing hair—O sight of woe!Over her broidered snood it sparkling flew,lighting her queenly tresses and her crownof jewels rare: then, wrapt in flaming cloud,from hall to hall the fire-god's gift she flung.This omen dread and wonder terriblewas rumored far: for prophet-voices toldbright honors on the virgin's head to fallby Fate's decree, but on her people, war.